2. Start creeping dogs online.

Your Instagram feed is suddenly full of cute dogs and puppies. You follow the Rover Instagram to live vicariously through the sitter pics. Also, you keep several Petfinder tabs open at all times and check your favorite local shelters for updates with militant regularity.

3. Go to a shelter “just to look.”

We all know you’re not just going to look, but you tell yourself you have willpower. This is the stage, the day even, at which you will likely leave the shelter with a dog. And a leash. And a harness. And an #AdoptDontShop bumper sticker, maybe.

7. Cry.

I cried so much the first two weeks I adopted my dog. He wouldn’t take a treat from me, he wanted to sit in someone else’s lap, I didn’t know what to name him, he didn’t respond to the name I gave him right after I picked one, etc.

…and you have to stay home all the time and you feel bad for wishing you hadn’t adopted the dog and maybe they could have a better life with someone less selfish. Just me? Cool, I’ll take that up with my therapist, who is also my dog.

10. Start thinking about getting another dog.

Carla Sparks

Carla Sparks is a professional writer and editor who specializes in humor, cultural criticism, finding amazing things for you to buy, and all things dog-related. She's owned by two rescue Chihuahua mixes.